He prefers to let his fingers do the talking, and while that might sound like a corny way to describe the legendary guitarist he’s actually quite voluble when wringing notes out of his six-string. Even when backed by equally talented players (including vocalists Andy Vargas and Ray Green) grappling for musical space he’s still the voice of his band, a charismatic, cool grandpa adept at pulling jazz licks out of rock, the blues and funk out of Latin rhythms.

Monday night’s show at Rogers Place showed the 70-year-old at his fevered best, leading an eight-piece band through a genre bending concert that left the audience hungry for more.

The two-and-a-half hour set list touched on nearly every era of Santana, from San Francisco hippie days to selections from his out-of-nowhere 1999 monster hit Supernatural and well beyond. Santana started chronologically with a trio of appetizer old jams from his debut album, running through Babatunde Olatunji’s Jingo and Evil Ways, pausing to bow briefly before the altar of John Coltrane with a snippet of A Love Supreme before dangling a few FM radio mainstays, starting with Black Magic Woman and Tito Puente’s Oye Como Va.

That signalled a full fledged dive into Latin rock, the band turning into a rhythm machine as percussionists Karl Perazzo, Paoli Meijias, and Cindy Blackman Santana (Carlos’ wife) locked into an inexorable groove.

Santana still found space to work in that fine mesh of snare, hi-hats and toms, one moment interpolating the melody to While My Guitar Gently Weeps into the mix, the next adding a touch of noise; he danced between licks, slammed his instrument down with drum shots, cajoled his band into a deeper, denser performance.

Carlos Santana performs on his Divination Tour at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Monday, March 12, 2018.Ian Kucerak /
Postmedia

Ray Green pulled out his trombone for a bit of call-and-response at the beginning of their version of Hendrix’s Foxy Lady, and that may have been the best part of their version, which was fine but wilted before the epochal original, as all Hendrix covers tend to. Even better was Green singing a straight version of When You Wish Upon a Star with keyboardist David Matthews, morphing with full band into Earth, Wind, and Fire’s Shining Star, second guitarist Tommy Anthony taking the lead vocal.

Swamp Dogg’s psych-funk manifesto Total Destruction to Your Mind was a blueprint for Santana and band to trace circles around Sly Stone and Funkadelic, with room to quote the Temptations, Stones, Roy Orbison, and more. Things could have happily kept cooking along those lines for a few more songs, but they opted to pull back (or push forward) to Supernatural and Shaman era with Maria Maria and Foo Foo. By then Santana had obviously wearied of seeing only two people dancing at the very front, urging the crowd to stand up and shake it, which almost everyone there proceeded to do.

But wait, you ask; it’s nice that Santana was generous enough to play the old songs, keeping the Woodstock kids happy, but did he play Smooth?

Well, you had to wait until further along in the encore, after an extended jam session followed by a muscular drum solo from Cindy Blackman Santana, but yes, he played Smooth. He’d been teasing it all night, or at least it seemed as though a stray guitar line or rhythm was hinting that it was coming, but the old pro knows what butters his bread.

Fans both young and old joined in communal happiness, the ghost of the still very much alive Rob Thomas was summoned through Green and Vargas, and the song that launched a thousand memes took the audience to their happy place.

Santana

When: Monday night

Where: Rogers Place

Carlos Santana performs on his Divination Tour at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta on Monday, March 12, 2018. Photo by Ian Kucerak/Postmedia

Carlos Santana performs on his Divination Tour at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta on Monday, March 12, 2018. Photo by Ian Kucerak/Postmedia

Carlos Santana performs on his Divination Tour at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta on Monday, March 12, 2018. Photo by Ian Kucerak/Postmedia

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